The Rose
by lilidelafield
Summary: Short Affair Challenge from LJ. Prompts were Rubble/ Crimson Mark Slate receives some news from home (Edited: Thank you Alynwa, for alerting me to a slight miscalculation!)


April Dancer looked up in surprise as her office door opened with a knock and a click. A head poked round. It was twenty-two-year old Harry Lennox, newest recruit to section three.

"Harry! Come in. Is everything all right?"

Harry inserted his body into the room. He carried a long, thin parcel in the crook of one arm, and a letter in the other.

"Miss…er…April, is Mark Slate here?"

April blinked, as a single glance round the room had doubtless confirmed that Mark was not here right now. She refrained from pointing out the obvious, as Harry was clearly nervous being in the presence of a section two agent, even a female.

"He's out on a run right now. Can I take a message?"

"Er…well…"

"He'll be about twenty minutes. I'm his partner, Harry, you can rest assured, if that is a delivery for Mister Slate, I will make sure he gets it the instant he returns."

Harry nodded nervously.

"Well, I have to…er…okay, thanks Miss…er…April…can you sign?"

April dutifully signed the boy's receipt and took the parcel and the envelope, and placed them carefully on Mark's desk. She was just finishing her report when her partner arrived back from his courier run. She smiled at him.

"Hey, you. Go well?"

Mark nodded.

"Like clockwork…" he broke off as he saw the parcel on his desk. "Hey, what's this?"

"There's a letter for you two, beneath the parcel." April told him. Mark picked up the box, full of curiosity and opened it.

Watching him, April saw all the colour leach from his face, leaving him as white as a sheet. Alarmed, she put down her folder and stood up.

"Mark, what is it?"

Wordlessly he showed her the contents of the box. It was a single, perfectly formed, long stemmed Dark **Crimson** Rose.

April took it. It was beautiful, but Mark was now fumbling slightly as he opened his letter. Just a few words evidently, for he read them in a few seconds. He crumpled the paper and pocketed it, picked up the rose and wandered out of the room almost blindly. Greatly alarmed, April followed him.

She watched as Napoleon Solo spoke to him in the corridor, asking about the courier run he had just completed, but Mark passed him by without reacting. Napoleon looked puzzled and a little concerned. April shrugged.

"He's just had some bad news…I guess…I'd better follow him Napoleon. I'll get him to call you, okay?"

Napoleon nodded, and April could feel his concerned gaze following her down the corridor.

Mark was out on the street outside Del Floria's before April caught him up. He glanced at her briefly, but said nothing. He kept on walking down the block, hailed a cab, and waited politely for April to get in before scrambling in himself.

"Montauk Point!" Mark said in a tight voice. April glanced at him. Montauk point was hardly a five-minute jaunt. Something was definitely wrong. Without consulting her partner, April took out her communicator.

"Channel D. Mister Solo?"

"Solo here."

"Dancer, sir. Umm..sir Something important has come up that Mark and I have to deal with…can we give you our reports tomorrow? We'll be gone for the rest of the day."

"Is it something I can know?"

"I don't know sir. We'll speak to you tomorrow."

"Very well. Be careful."

April disconnected and sat back, glancing in concern at her partner. Mark seemed to welcome her presence, but was disinclined to speak right now. Something serious must have happened. She sat quietly beside him, and refrained from asking him anything. He knew she was here for him. He would talk to her when he was ready, she knew. All she needed to do was be there.

When they arrived at the point, Mark paid the fare and April followed him as he walked down the path and on to the beach. He still carried his crimson rose in his left hand. He was weeping. His face was impassive, on the surface at least, but tears streamed down his face. He stood, staring out to sea for several minutes, and then he stepped forward, into the surf, shoes and all and gently threw his rose into the ebbing current. For thirty minutes they stood side by side, watching as the rose was carried out to sea, bobbing on the waves until finally it was out of sight.

Suddenly, Mark sat down and put his chin in his hands, his elbows on his knees. April sat beside him and put her arm around him. He leaned in to her, and started talking, so softly he might have been talking to himself.

"It was during the Blitz, I don't know how mum kept going. Always cheerful and optimistic…in front of us kids anyway…we spend half a day and a night in the shelter once, and it was freezing cold down there. The noises of the air raid was terrifying. When we came out the next morning, half our house was gone, along with half the street. Old Mister Cooper's house got flattened, Miss Terry…" he blinked and shook his head.

"Anyway dad had been at work, working later than usual, and…the blokes never made it to the shelters in time. Dad was killed along with thirty others when the whole building came down on top of them. When we got his body out of the **rubble** , we buried him properly in our back garden, nice and deep. Mum said something about he would always be near us then…"

Mark shook his head, wiping futilely at his falling tears. April listened silently, shocked, and uncertain quite what to say. She took his hand in hers and squeezed it. He gave her a wan smile and an acknowledging squeeze.

"The following spring, mum noticed that something was starting to grow over the place where dad's grave was…not anything we had planted. Not knowingly anyway. But by late June we had a beautiful display of dark crimson roses."

"Like the one that you received?"

Mark nodded.

"That particular rose symbolizes mourning, but also rebirth. We always felt it fitting…"

His resolve crumbled briefly, and he dropped his face into his hands, and for a moment or two, his shoulders shook. April stroked his hair until he was able to look up. Finally, he did. He looked at his partner.

"My mum's gone, April. She's gone, and I'll never see her again. Ever since the war, The Slate family have used that rose to signify a death in the family. She'll be laid next to dad underneath the rose bush in the garden."

April hugged her partner close.

"I'm so sorry Mark. When is the funeral? Can I come with you?"

He turned damp eyes to her.

"Thank you April…"

They stood and watched the rolling ocean.


End file.
